CAT (VARC) PYQs

There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit. Paragraph: A volume of translated Italian madrigals were published in London during the year of 1588. This sudden public interest facilitated a surge of English Madrigal writing as well as a spurt of other secular music writing and publication ___ (1) ___ . This music boom lasted for thirty years and was as much a golden age of music as British literature was with Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth ___ (2) ___ . The rebirth in both literature and music originated in Italy and migrated to England; the English madrigal became more humorous and lighter in England as compared to Italy. Renaissance music was mostly polyphonic in texture ___ (3) ___ . Extreme use of and contrasts in dynamics, rhythm, and tone colour do not occur ___ (4) ___ . The rhythms in Renaissance music tend to have a smooth, soft flow instead of a sharp, well-defined pulse of accents. Sentence: Comprehending a wide range of emotions, Renaissance music nevertheless portrayed all emotions in a balanced and moderate fashion.

The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage. Cartographers design and create maps to communicate information about phenomena located somewhere on our planet. In the past, cartographers did not worry too much about who was going to read their maps. Although some simple “usability” research was done—like comparing whether circle or bar symbols worked best cartographers knew how to make maps. This has changed now, however, due to all kinds of societal and technological developments. Today, map readers are more demanding mostly because of the tools they use to read maps. Cartographers, who are also influenced by these trends, are now more interested in seeing if their products are efficient, effective, and appreciated.

The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage. Scientific research shows that many animals are very intelligent and have sensory and motor abilities that dwarf ours. Dogs are able to detect diseases such as cancer and diabetes and warn humans of impending heart attacks and strokes. Elephants, whales, hippopotamuses, giraffes, and alligators use low-frequency sounds to communicate over long distances, often miles. Many animals also display wide-ranging emotions, including joy, happiness, empathy, compassion, grief, and even resentment and embarrassment. It's not surprising that animals share many emotions with us because we also share brain structures, located in the limbic system, that are the seat of our emotions.

Five jumbled up sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence and key in the number of that sentence as your answer. 1. Animals have an interest in fulfilling their basic needs, but also in avoiding suffering, and thus we ought to extend moral consideration. 2. Singer viewed himself as a utilitarian, and presents a direct moral theory concerning animal rights, in contrast to indirect positions, such as welfarist views. 3. He argued for extending moral consideration to animals because, similar to humans, animals have certain significant interests. 4. The event that publicly announced animal rights as a legitimate issue within contemporary philosophy was Peter Singer's Animal Liberation text in 1975. 5. As such, we ought to view their interests alongside and equal to human interests, which results in humans having direct moral duties towards animals.

The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage. Certain codes may, of course, be so widely distributed in a specific language community or culture, and be learned at so early an age, that they appear not to be constructed – the effect of an articulation between sign and referent – but to be 'naturally' given. Simple visual signs appear to have achieved a 'near-universality' in this sense: though evidence remains that even apparently 'natural' visual codes are culture specific. However, this does not mean that no codes have intervened; rather, that the codes have been profoundly naturalized. The operation of naturalized codes reveals not the transparency and 'naturalness' of language but the depth, the habituation and the near-universality of the codes in use. They produce apparently 'natural' recognitions. This has the (ideological) effect of concealing the practices of coding which are present.

Five jumbled up sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence and key in the number of that sentence as your answer. 1. Urbanites also have more and better options for getting around: Uber is ubiquitous; easy-to-rent dockless bicycles are spreading; battery-powered scooters will be next. 2. When more people use buses or trains the service usually improves because public-transport agencies run more buses and trains. 3. Worsening services on public transport, terrorist attacks in some urban metros and a rise in fares have been blamed for this trend. 4. It seems more likely that public transport is being squeezed structurally as people's need to travel is diminishing as a result of smartphones, video-conferencing, online shopping and so on. 5. There has been a puzzling decline in the use of urban public transport in many countries in the west, despite the growth in urban populations and rising employment.

There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit. Paragraph: ___ (1) ___ You can't just put things anywhere you want to. The evolved architecture of the brain is haphazard and disjointed, and incorporates multiple systems, each of which has a mind of its own ___ (2) ___ . Evolution doesn't design things and it doesn't build systems, it settles on systems that, historically, conveyed a survival benefit. There is no overarching, grand planner engineering the systems so that they work harmoniously together ___ (3) ___ . The brain is more like a big, old house with piecemeal renovations done on every floor, and less like new construction ___ (4) ___ . Sentence: The brain isn't organized the way you might set up your home office or bathroom medicine cabinet.

There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit. Paragraph: The nations of the Silk Roads are sometimes called 'developing countries', but they are actually some of the world's most highly developed countries, the very crossroads of civilization, in advanced states of disrepair ___ (1) ___ . These countries lie at the centre of global affairs: they have since the beginning of history. Running across the spine of Asia, they form a web of connections fanning out in every direction, routes along which pilgrims and warriors, nomads and merchants have travelled, goods and produce have been bought and sold, and ideas exchanged, adapted and refined ___ (2) ___ . They have carried not only prosperity, but also death and violence, disease and disaster ___ (3) ___ . The Silk Roads are the world's central nervous system, connecting otherwise far-flung peoples and places ___ (4) ___ . It allows us to see patterns and links, causes and effects that remain invisible if one looks only at Europe, or North America. Sentence: Understanding central Asia's role helps developments make more sense not only across Asia but in Europe, the Americas and Africa.